"Tyler, the Creator", aka Tyler Gregory Okonma, has responded to the criticism he received over his "Mountain Dew" commercial.
The 60-second ad developed by the 22-year-old rapper was slammed by the public as racist and offensive. It features a battered white woman viewing a police lineup of suspects - mostly black men, along with a female goat, which is actually the culprit.
The goat makes comments to the woman, saying, "Ya better not snitch on a playa," and, "Keep your mouth shut."
The woman, who appears on crutches, eventually screams "I can't do this, no no no!" and runs off.
The video was released by PepsiCo Inc. They soon issued an apology after receiving the unprecedented amount of backlash for the offensive video.
"We apologize for this video and take full responsibility," the company said in a statement last week. "We have removed it from all Mountain Dew channels and Tyler is removing it from his channels as well."
On May 3, Tyler, the Creator told Billboard: "It was just a goat who liked Mountain Dew. He wanted more. The waitress lady got hurt. He got pulled over by the cops, and the lady points out the goat [in the line-up], who obviously attacked her because of the Mountain Dew. And that's it.
"I guess people are claiming that it's racist, which... you know, that wasn't even portrayed in that commercial, there's no type of hate being portrayed in that work of art at all -- which I'm confused by."
He continued: "It was crazy. It's a black guy making this, and if it's so racist and feeding into stereotypes, why in the first commercial that goes along with it, is there a black male with his Asian wife?"
